Making Weasleys
by dogstar-ebony
Summary: Somewhere between the last two chapters of Deathly Hallows, Ron married Hermione and had children. This is my version of how it all happened. RWHG, post DH. RR


I've had to learn a lot over the past few years. I now know, for example, how to cook without magic, and do it without singing my eyebrows. I know when to fall silent and let my wife win an argument when she needs to because of her lousy day. I know, after _much_ protest, to stop saying "it's so weird" at the thought that my little sister is married to my best friend, even though I still think it's completely surreal, even now. But every so often my wife likes to pull the rug from beneath my feet. She insists it's purely coincidental, but I disagree. I think she does it to remind me that no matter how much I learn, she'll always be able to throw me.

There have been only two occasions on which Hermione has managed to render me absolutely speechless. The first time was when, after weeks of nervous almost-there-but-not-quite-brave-enough-yet's, after literally _hundreds_ of scenarios in my mind in which she had accepted graciously, I finally plucked up the courage to propose to her. We weren't anywhere special, just a little Italian restaurant we especially liked. I had thought about taking her somewhere amazing to propose, but three things stopped me.

1. The fact that she isn't stupid, as convenient as that might be at times, and she would probably figure it out if I suddenly took her somewhere incredible and new, which would be breaking character entirely for me. Which would ruin the moment a little.

2. The fact that a million other people have proposed on the Eiffel tower, or in some stupid restaurant where the bill comes to more than their monthly rent, and apart from not having the money to do that it seemed really stupid and unoriginal. And, finally,

3. The more public the place, the more painful it would be if she turned me down, because every single eye in the place would be on me.

So, this in mind, and after much encouragement from Harry (who, lucky bastard, had had nothing to worry about whatsoever when it was _his_ turn, because after about eighteen months Ginny, being Ginny, had all but asked him when he was going to do it, leaving her answer pretty much a sure-fire yes) I had decided simply to take her back to Pirelli's and do it, quietly, there.

I didn't get down on one knee, either. I simply took her hand across the table, and pushed the ring into her curled fingers, looking straight into the clear brown of her eyes and trying to slow the beating of my heart, which suddenly thudded so hard against my chest I half-expected a tattoo across my breast. Hermione didn't say a word for an agonisingly-long second, her face a mask of shock, and I joined her in the silence, beseeching her with my eyes. It was almost comical, to anyone who knows us – I don't think either of us had ever been so quiet for so long.

And then she did the most unexpected thing of all – she nodded slowly, a smile uncurling from the corner of her mouth, and I died of shock right there. Despite all my self-reassurances, despite Harry's constant promises that she wouldn't reject me, despite all the happy scenarios I had imagined, I had been utterly convinced she would say no. When she didn't, the only thing that made sense to me at that moment was to kiss her, which is precisely what I did.

The only other time since our marriage that Hermione has managed to steal the voice straight from my throat was one night around three years after our wedding. Used to the warm feel of my body folded solidly around hers, I had been jerked from sleep to see the sheets on her side crumpled and vacant. I found her in the bathroom, perched on the edge of the toilet seat. I came to sit beside her on the floor, positioning myself between her legs and looking up into her worried face.

"What's wrong?" I said, and instead of the "nothing" she usually gave me, she looked me in the eyes and gripped my hand

"I'm pregnant," she said, and I felt the reassuring smile slide from my face as I took her words in. "I knew it," she continued, and I noticed then that her eyes were bright with tears. "I knew you wouldn't be pleased."

She turned from me then, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, and her little sobs were heartbreaking to hear. I pulled her awkwardly to me, feeling every one of her cries like a brand across my heart, and I hugged her as best I could, stroking her hair.

"Don't be so silly," I soothed. "It's fantastic news, I'm just shocked, that's all, sweetheart, I promise you."

She pulled back, red-faced and sniffly, and I drew her to me, trying to convey my happiness, trying to reassure her with my kisses.

"You're really happy?" she mumbled, her voice thick with tears, and when I simply looked at her, her face broke into smiles.

The next few months passed by quickly. Hermione grew used to my coming up behind her when she was washing dishes or brushing her teeth and cupping her growing belly in my hands, squealing at me in mock-irritation. Every night she slept curled into me, my arm slung protectively around the swollen hardness of her belly and every kick of the baby set me smiling so hard that she eventually grew annoyed with me for waking her every time it happened.

Pregnancy suits Hermione. She never believes me when I tell her, but it does. Her face filled out once more, finally returning to the former smooth roundness that had been robbed by the stresses of what would have been our seventh year at Hogwarts. Most women become more moody when pregnant, their hormones sending their emotions haywire, but not my wife. She's already so tightly-wound all the time that she seemed to have gone over the edge and right back round to mellow again. We argued so little during her pregnancy that I began to miss it, trying to provoke her at every opportunity.

My mother, of course, went into Hermione-overdrive the second she heard about the baby. She's nurturing at the best of times, but poor Hermione could barely move at home without Mum insisting that she make her some soup, because "it's good for the baby." If I'd heard "it's good for the baby" just one more time I'd have gone insane, but I think a part of me knew that a large motivation behind her obsessive mothering was lingering grief over Fred. I don't think she'll ever get over that, not properly. She couldn't look at poor George for a few months without bursting into tears, not that it's her fault.

It was snowing the day Hermione went into labour; I remember because we were just sitting down to Sunday lunch with her parents, and when she shrieked that it was starting, Mr Granger's car had to be de-iced before we could bundle her into the back and drive to the hospital. We took her to the nearest Muggle hospital, because Hermione had been adamant that she wanted all of her family to easily be able to visit, and because she wanted our child to have some kind of Muggle tradition in its life.

Her labour wasn't easy. The baby, nestled comfortably in the softness of her womb, took its time leaving; so much time, in fact, that it wasn't until early on Tuesday morning, a full thirty-seven hours later, that the keening cries and squaws of my daughter broke through the room.

"Let me see her," came Hermione's voice from the bed, and she had to ask twice, because I was transfixed by my daughter. She was absolutely tiny. Honestly. She didn't cry, not properly, she simply nestled in my arms when the doctor handed her to me and made odd little snuffly noises. Her face was wrinkled so that she resembled a little old woman, but the thick hair that sprouted from the top of her head was silky and a red so dark as to appear black, and her eyes were huge and blue. I could have looked at her forever, and never grown bored, because it seemed that every time I looked I found some new wonder.

I handed her to Hermione, gently, and she settled against her mother's chest as easily as she had mine. "Oh," Hermione breathed, her eyes bright. "Oh, she's beautiful, Ron," and I could hear her voice crack with happiness. She lifted a hand carefully, adjusting her grip on the baby so that she was supported, and touched her tiny features delicately, wondrously. "Her skin is so soft, Ron, it's like a petal,"

I eased myself carefully so that I was sitting beside Hermione and settled an arm around her shoulders, my free hand gently stroking the baby's face. "Then that's what we'll call her."

"What's that?" Hermione asked. We'd been chasing around names for months now, never agreeing on one. If I liked it, Hermione hated it. If she liked it, it didn't go with _Weasley_, and so we had finally agreed that when our child was born we would decide together. If not, George had insisted that he would name the baby, which we had agreed could only be bad, considering he was adamant that his first child would be christened Gilligan.

"Rose," I said softly, and to my surprise, Hermione nodded.

"Rose," she repeated. "Rose Molly Weasley."

Rose wrapped her tiny fist around my finger and squeezed tight, and in that moment I knew that she had taken more than my hand; she held my heart just as surely as I knew I held hers.

**Author's Note** – **I seem to have caught the writing bug lately – this is my third oneshot in as many days! I wrote this simply because it was in my mind and because I wanted to write something that isn't Marauder, isn't tragic and isn't a missing moment. I was going to write about Hugo as well but I think it worked better leaving it with Rose's birth. I hope whoever reads this liked it. **


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